MONTECARLO AND BOLTZMANN CALCULATIONS OF ELECTRON-ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS IN RF FIELDS .1. IMPACT OF HIGHER-ORDER TERMS

Detailed comparisons between Montecarlo and Boltzmann calculations of electron energy distributions in gases acted upon by RF fields are presented. Attention is turned to model gases of special theoretical interest but various calculations have also been made for real gases such as pure CO and He-CO mixtures. The analysis has shown that large discrepancies exist between energy distributions obtained with the two mentioned techniques under conditions of particular physical interest. The discrepancies are found to be the consequence of the two-term approximation and are expected to disappear if an appropriate multiterm solution of the Boltzmann equation is adopted.